


2 o'clock

by thegrumblingirl



Series: The Stars, the Moon, They Have All Been Blown Out [1]
Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: 1x06, Episode Tag, First Time, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-03
Updated: 2012-08-03
Packaged: 2017-11-11 10:01:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/pseuds/thegrumblingirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a life or death situation, revelations of the romantic kind are bound to happen. Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt are no exception, try as they might.</p>
            </blockquote>





	2 o'clock

"Bye, Annie."

Sam looked at her, tears in his eyes, trying to smile, to make it easier for her. She smiled ruefully back at him, hugging herself, hoping she might be able to stem the pain and the sobs that she knew would tear through her if Cole made good on his threat. Sam was glad he'd met her. She'd been a good friend, had tried to anchor him to this insane world, even when he struggled to break free of something he didn't understand. Had kept his secrets—not just the time travelling and the lunacy, but something far more important. Far bigger than what Sam had thought his mind could conjure up for him.

It physically hurt Sam to move and let his eyes roam over his DCI's features one last time, to lock gazes with him until the bullet would surely hit and end this world he'd found himself trapped in. His DCI, his guv. His Gene. He wanted to say something, to say good-bye, if that had to be all he  _could_ say, here and now, but he couldn't, his voice wouldn't obey, and his throat constricted painfully. So he tried saying what he meant to with his eyes, before he was distracted by something and cast his eyes down to concentrate. There was a second clock ticking, noticeable only because it was just out of sync with the one on the wall. There were two clocks, two worlds, counting the seconds until he was going to die—was he going to die here, going to get out of this trap, only to die in the real world a second later? Or would the patches of colour suddenly converge, would he miraculously wake up? He was just starting to cling to that will all his might, when he heard Gene's voice.

"When you're done with 'im," he heard that gravelly voice grind out, burning anger barely kept in check, mixed with a hint of something Sam couldn't place, "you better turn on me quick, Cole. Or I'll kill  _you_!"

Sam squeezed his eyes shut, unable to handle the emotions that clouded his mind at this. For a moment, he allowed himself to hold on to that anger in Gene's voice, to believe that maybe it wasn't just anger at some bastard shooting his DI; that maybe he'd become as important to the guv as Gene had become to him. All these feelings, that hope, were surpassed a second later by the whistling that took up in his head just that moment—it was as Annie had said. There was it, his happiest memory, playing out in his mind before he died. But this world was still all he could feel, there was no other awareness encroaching on him, nothing that felt like him lying in a hospital bed hooked up to machines and being fed through tubes—if he heard it here, then what did that say about the reality, the importance of this world? Still, he couldn't stop the grin that nearly threw his ears off the sides of his head, all the while trying to make sense of what he felt. Perhaps this was why he'd been sent here by his mind, perhaps this was why he hadn't been able to stop himself developing a crush on his Neanderthal, nicotine-stained boss who embodied everything he would have hated in a man in 2006: just before he had the accident, he'd told Maya that emotions were no use anymore, not in his job. Perhaps his mind had conjured up this world to make him see that they did. Oh, God, they did. So much. And in this one moment, he was grateful for unrequited love. He'd never forget Gene, but if he left him now to wake up and try to live a better life and allow emotions back into it, then that would be alright with him. The nagging feeling, the tears, not of joy, but of grief, that ran down his cheeks, reminding him that, no, it would never be alright, were squashed by his father's words in his mind.

"Sammy! Big boy now, eh?"

A shot rang through the room as Litton rushed in, and Sam dropped to the ground instinctively, but was hauled back up by Cole.

"No, sir, no!"

He tried to get Litton to back off, to lower his gun, but the bastard wouldn't listen. Well, did he ever? After that, everything went almost too fast for Sam to register. Hunt's foot shot up to punch Litton in the guts, he got up and turned on Cole.

"Put the gun down, Reg—" was all he could say before another shot was fired, and all Sam could do was watch as the guv went down. He heard Annie scream in terror and saw Chris and Ray kneel down next to Gene's body, Chris asking for an ambulance.

 _No_ , Sam thought; staring at the guv, face-down on the floor, not moving.  _No, no, no, no, no, NO!_  Not him, not Gene, not now. He walked closer, shaking his head in denial and despair.

"He can't, he can't, it wasn't supposed to—someone dies, 2 o'clock, it wa-it wasn't supposed to…" was all he could stammer before he had to turn away. He heard Chris say something about the guv bleeding whiskey, but his mind didn't process it. All he could think was that his heart was still beating, why was his heart still beating while the guv's was going to stop any second? He'd seen it; the bullet must have hit his chest, a shot to the lung in 1973, that was bloody hopeless. Sam's heart clenched, once again reminding him that it was him who was supposed to die today.

He rounded on Litton, who didn't even have the grace to look overly shocked, and grabbed him by his vest.

"This was the guv's collar. I want that known. Have you got that? HAVE YOU GOT THAT?"

It was then that he heard a grunt from the guv's general direction. A grunt that actually sounded suspiciously like him. Sam turned, with his mouth still shaped in preparation for a few choice insults he was going to throw at Litton's empty head, and saw Gene, sitting up slowly, taking in the situation.

"And I want 'Love Me Tender' played at my funeral," he added, shoving past Annie, who had been hunched over him to check his pulse, and apparently checking his jacket pockets for something—what appeared in his hand was one of his flasks, adorned with a bullet hole. Sam let go of Litton and moved closer to Gene, but checked his impulse to drop on his knees beside him and touch him, touch him all over to make sure it wasn't another illusion.

"That was lucky, eh?"

"Wha-what are the chances?" Sam could feel the traces of hysterical laughter bubbling up in his voice. His mind was a truly twisted place. Gene proceeded to pull more flasks out of pretty much every pocket his jacket had.

"Pretty good, actually. Well, you never know how far you're gonna be from a boozer!"

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, until Annie's cry rang out above the murmur—Cole had struggled loose of the sergeants, and he still had the weapon.

* * *

A few minutes later, they were standing in front of the building, journalists waiting for the DCI to make a statement, but Ray beat Hunt to it.

"The guv took a shot to the chest in the line of duty!"

"Luckily, he had the foresight to be wearing protection," Chris added, with a twinkle in his eyes.

Gene decided it was time to shut the two up before anyone asked just what kind of protection, and spoke up.

"Well, I'm a great believer in following  _standard procedure_  in a  _hostage-taking scenario_ ," he supplied, with a short glance in Sam's direction after he carefully pronounced the fancy words his DI was so keen on. Sam chuckled. He knew it was a compliment for getting Cole to give up the gun in the end.

Annie laughed quietly, and fixed him with that look he'd privately labelled her 'One Day That Crush Is Going to Make You Implode If You Don't Tell Him' look. She tilted her head, and he felt obliged to change the subject.

"They didn't switch me off. Why?" he asked no-one in particular, and Annie had to suppress a groan.

"Sam? Do me a favour. Enjoy the moment."

She made to walk away, but then turned around and looked at him, imploringly.

"And talk to him."

Now it was Sam's turn to groan.

"Annie, no. It's alright, it really is, it's just a crush. I don't even know  _why_  I'm attracted to him, so it can't be that bad. It'll pass."

"No, it won't. You should've seen your face in there. First when you couldn't say good-bye to him, and then when you thought he was shot. It won't just go away, Sam. And it doesn't have to."

"He doesn't fancy me, Annie," Sam whispered, mindful of the fact that this was still 1973; his mind could only twist the fabric of reality so far. "He just doesn't. That man is as straight as the proverbial arrow, straighter than that, if possible. And he'd never cheat on his wife, let alone leave her for me, so what the hell are you playing at?"

He didn't mean to snap at her, but he couldn't help himself, worked up as he was; and she only fixed him with another understanding look.

"Didn't you pay attention? He nearly went mad in there. I was right next to him, Sam, I could feel him tremble. He wasn't kidding when he threatened to kill Cole, and he wasn't just angry, he was scared. Scared of what his world would look like without you."

"He's just too lazy to fill out the paperwork to get a new DI."

"Sam!"

"What do you want me to do, Annie? I can't indulge wishful thinking on this, and I don't want to think about what letting myself feel it means for the real world when I wake up, and even if you were right—"

"Just remember what you said, Sam,  _I'm_  the psychology graduate."

"Even. if. you were. right," Sam repeated through gritted teeth, "he'd never do anything about it. He's gonna wrap it up in Scotch and throw it away in that trash can at the back of his mind, and that's where it's gonna stay until I'm gone, and after that."

Annie smiled at him, smiled that smile like she knew something he didn't.

"But it doesn't matter, anyway," Sam almost sang in a forced cheerful voice, "'cause you're  _wrong_!" He punctuated those last words with a forefinger lightly stabbing at Annie's shoulder, until he remembered that that was something Gene always did to him, and his hand fell to his side in inadmissible defeat.

"The plonk's wrong about  _what_?"

Sam nearly jumped five feet in the air—he hadn't heard him ( _well, that's rather the point of sneaking up on someone_ , whispered that traitorous voice inside his head) and the words had been spoken not even an inch from his ear, which caused shivers of a less than fearful kind to curse through DI Tyler. He looked to Annie for help, but had to discover that she'd used the opportunity to slip away and leave her superior officers alone to sort things out. Focusing on Gene, Sam fumbled for words, but faltered when the guv took another step towards him, utterly  _annihilating_  the concept of personal space.

"Mmh?" Gene rumbled by way of enquiry, and Sam's brain gave up, circuits fried.

"Nothing," he mumbled, and ducked away from his DCI, to get away from those green eyes staring at him, dissembling him and putting him back together. He needed to breathe, preferably not the slightly sweat-drenched, musky aftershave of Gene Hunt.

* * *

"Can someone put me on the first flight to Jamaica,  _please_!"

Sam laughed along with the others at Nelson's only too understandable despair, and then picked up the phone that was ringing for him. Patches of colour, his arse. His mum had seen him smile. Had seen him smile because of his dad—then Hunt invaded his personal space,  _again_ , and he wondered whether it was just that. Sam's face clouded over a bit when he saw the paper. In all the confusion, he'd nearly forgotten how jealous he'd gotten over Jackie Queen. Bad piece in the papers or no, there'd been something between them, and he didn't like it, no matter how forcefully he told himself that he had no right whatso-bloody-ever to think that.

"So, tell me, between you and me, guv," Sam teased as he flipped open the newspaper with Gene on the front page, standing tall with his typically grouchy face whenever he was faced with too much public attention, and leaned close for a second before asking, "how does it feel to be a  _hero_?"

"Like being drunk. On meself!" his DCI answered, getting very close to Sam and looking into his eyes with a look that was a strange mixture of recklessness and self-contentment. They both turned when Annie put on the record and 'A Wonderful World' started playing, and simultaneously answered her smile. Sam felt the guv move away from him to join one of the tables and start drinking, and Annie's conspirative smile intensified. He couldn't help but smile back before his eyes started following the guv around the room; of course she'd watched their exchange. He was almost surprised the guv hadn't yet commented on her seemingly unwarranted attention whenever he and Sam were together in front of her—when he'd said something to that effect during one of their The Single Poofter and Plonk dinners, Annie had shaken her head, and said, "DI Tyler, you are a bit thick sometimes, eh? He doesn't notice because he can't take his eyes off ya." Sam had scoffed and busied himself with his curry, but hoped that she was right against his better judgement.

He shook himself back to the present, and winked at Annie before he joined Gene, Ray, and Chris at one of the tables in the far corner.

* * *

Many hours and countless pints of bitter later, Ray and Chris were so pissed they wouldn't have been able to point out the pair of breasts on a naked Dolly Parton, but Sam and Gene were surprisingly sober. Gene because he did have superior liquor-holding powers, mostly, but he really had held back throughout the evening; and Sam partly because he never liked to blow his brains out with alcohol, but also because he wanted to stay aware enough to catalogue Gene's reactions. He seemed different, as if something had been shaken up within him and he wasn't quite sure whether to be entirely comfortable with it, but he appeared to be bearing it with dignity.

At least until Sam threw his head back, laughing loudly, at some drunkenly stupid thing Chris had just said, and Gene sputtered his Scotch across the table. Sam felt some of the spray hitting him and looked back up, one brow drawn up questioningly. The guv was just wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, looking, for all the world, rather embarrassed, and took his time with meeting Sam's curious eyes.

"Got it down the wrong pipe," he snarled half-heartedly, and Sam chuckled. He was surprised, though, when Gene got up, grabbed his coat, and went towards the door.

"I need air," he grumbled, and left. Sam debated the alternatives for a moment, but then made his mind up and followed the guv outside.

He found him leaning against the wall of the pub, smoking and looking disgruntled.

"Everythin' alright… Gene?" He sometimes took the liberty of calling the guv by his first name, ever since the undercover job in the Trafford Arms. That job had changed a lot—among other things, it had made one thing absolutely clear to Sam: there was no getting out of the attraction he felt for Gene Hunt, not in a hundred years. How he knew? Here's a hint: that moment when the guv had him pinned against the wall 'backstage' after he'd hauled him away from the bar because he thought his DCI was off his face drunk in the least opportune moment; his left hand had grazed Sam's nipple through his thin shirt, and he'd thought he'd explode right there and then. And his disappointment at the other man taking his hand away had surely shown on his face.

He was shaken out of those thoughts as Gene turned to face him, a curious expression on his face.

"Come on," he said, "it's late enough. Let's get you home."

Sam was surprised, but agreed. Together, they got into the Cortina, and off it went. They didn't talk much on the way, but it wasn't a completely uncomfortable silence, more of an… expectant tension. Whatever that meant. Sam figured he'd either find out soon enough, or it would have to be buried somewhere along with the rest of their homoerotic subtext. When they got to Sam's flat, the guv got out of the car with him, and Sam looked at him over his shoulder, caught off guard.

"Walking me to the door like a proper gentleman, guv?"

"Shut up, Gladys."

Sam chuckled again and led the way upstairs, not bothering to check whether the guv was following.

As it happened, he was. Sam opened the door and stepped to the side to let his DCI in, then shoved the door shut behind them.

"You gonna tell me why you're here, then?"

"I might. If you had the grace to sit down rather than stand there and stare at me like a lost pup."

Sam rolled his eyes, but did as requested—well, commanded—and sat down at the small table. Gene nodded mutely and started pacing up and down. After a while of watching him, Sam spoke up.

"You know, this would be a lot easier if you just sat down as well, instead of pacing holes into my naturally thin imaginary carpet."

The guv shot a murderous look at him, but mercifully stopped moving around. Sam squirmed a bit, but managed to keep his face impassive.

"Half the time I have no bloody idea what you're on about, Sammy boy."

Now, Sam couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, but you luv me for it."

Whoops. He hadn't said that aloud, had he? Funnily enough, the guv's expression didn't darken significantly; he just smirked and leaned down towards him, resting his hands on the table.

"Well, at least you seem to have grasped the problem."

"Wha'?"

"You heard me."

Sam blinked up at the man. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. He couldn't seem to stop. Was Gene really telling him what he thought he was saying? No, he couldn't be.

"What are we gonna do about it, then?"

Sam still couldn't bring his brain to supply words to be articulated, apart from 'are you havin' me on?'.

"Tyler! Stop staring, start talking! What. do we. do?"

"Well… wha-what do you want to hear? Advice? Advice on what?"

"Advice on what to do about the fact that I'm more than a bit attracted to you, you poofter!"

"You know, calling me homophobic names when you're trying to tell me that you have feelings for me, a  _man_ , isn't exactly going to help." For all the turmoil that was currently raging in Sam's stomach, he was amazingly calm on the outside. But not for long.

"Sod your sensitivities, Tinkerbell, I want an answer!"

Sam's calm flew right out the window, along with his dignity, probably, but he was going to have to assess that later, when he wasn't high on endorphins and adrenaline. He got out of his chair, squaring up to Gene.

"I can't just give you The Answer, Gene. You're attracted to me, alright; I'd never expected it would ever happen, but, hey, you never know. But you're married, and you despise men who cheat on their wives. Besides, it was a rough day, and—"

"Am I getting this wrong, or are you trying to talk me out of something here?"

"What d'you mean?"

Gene suddenly lowered his eyes. "Well, I just thought you… you were interested."

Sam's expression softened. "I am. More than that." Gene's eyes snapped back up to his. "But," Sam quickly interjected as he noticed the other man drawing breath to say something, "but: I wasn't gonna do anything about it, for obvious reasons. In danger of repeating myself: it was a rough day, and I'm not having you imagining something you're not really feeling just because someone almost shot me today."

At that, Gene's expression did darken significantly—which is the nice way of saying, he went berserk. Sam suddenly found himself pinned against the wall behind his chair, his DCI inches from his face, bellowing. Not that he wasn't used to it by now, but one had to wonder about a man whose only way of communicating was slamming people into hard surfaces.

"You weren't just almost shot, you stupid blighter, you were almost  _executed_. Right in front of me, I might add, and I couldn't do anything to save you. I had to stand there and  _watch_. And trust me, I'm not imagining anything when that almost drives me mad, even in hindsight, probably will for a while yet in my sleep. I'm not imagining anything when I get turned on by that triangular grin o' yours, or when I want to bend you over a desk when you're being clever and cheeky all at once. 'n doesn't that bloody terrify me! As for my missus—why do you think I kept bringing her up so often, despite the fact that she doesn't love me anymore? To try and put something between us, even though I knew it wasn't gonna work. She's gonna leave me, Sam, one of these days, and I'm not gonna chain her to the radiator when she does."

Sam swallowed thickly. This would change everything and complicate so much. Would giving in to his feelings mean that this was real? How could he even feel something this powerful in a phantasy? Would his disbelief in this world doom their relationship, and spoil everything? Would he be able to let go when he woke up, back in 2006? A thousand reasons why they shouldn't. Yet, he couldn't stop himself, _wouldn't_ stop himself from taking a chance at being happy.

"And what now?"

"Now," Gene snapped, "you either kiss me, or punch me."

Momentarily stunned, Sam decided to take a leap of faith and closed the already minute distance between his and Gene's lips. Carefully, he pressed his mouth on the other man's, softly moving against him. The man himself had gone rigid for a second, as if he hadn't quite believed that this was actually going to happen. But a moment later he was kissing Sam back, just as carefully at first, but then with more gusto—until everything was nipping teeth, tongues mating, and nothing hurt anymore.

 _Breathing? Breathing's boring_ , Sam concluded as he brought his hands up to get a hold of Gene's lapels and pull his body closer to his without breaking the kiss, desperate to curl his left hand into his DCI's chest while the other snaked up into soft blond hair; and his heart leapt at Gene making a soft rumbling noise in the back of his throat as Sam gently scraped blunt fingernails along his scalp. Now, Sam couldn't resist.

"Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur, happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr purr purr?" he teased.

"I'm gonna vomit up a few fur balls down your shirt if you keep that up," Gene retorted testily, but his voice was soft and husky, and Sam's face split into a grin that might just rival the one his mum had seen on his face just hours earlier. Unbidden, he found himself wondering whether the emotional uproar that he was in now would, um, _show_  somewhere on his comatose self… if so, he sure hoped his mother had gone home to rest.

"What's that crunched-up nose, Tyler?"

Sam returned from his thoughts and felt several things all at once. One, Gene's hands had moved to his waist while he'd spaced out, and his thumbs were drawing lazy circles on Sam's hips. Two, he was giving him a look that Sam had seen on the guv's face many times before—but he hadn't _observed_  it. It was that steady, intense, boring-into-his-soul stare that Sam had often found himself fixed with, and sometimes only just felt on his back. Was this what Annie had meant, was this why she'd been so sure? Because maybe, just maybe, Sam could see it now, too. Three, there was a very insistent erection pressed against his own, and something told Sam that he really shouldn't wait any longer with doing something about that, or he might actually die of sheer sexual frustration.

"Sorry, I was just… thinking."

"Yeah, well, there's a time and place for that, don't you think?"

"You're right—and right now and right here really isn't."

With that, Sam stretched up and caught Gene's lips in a kiss that had them both breathing harshly through their noses in less than a minute, and which spurred them on to get away from the wall, towards the bed; the taller man ridding himself of his coat, jacket and tie before he let Sam go to work on his shirt buttons, returning the favour a second later. Sam's breathing hitched when Gene's hands could finally roam across his naked chest, grip his hips to grind their loins together, and rove up his back to his shoulder blades, holding the younger man closer. He hurried to divest his DCI of his shirt and vest before breaking the kiss to lean down and teasingly bite a nipple, for which he was rewarded with a low moan and hands frantically working at his belt buckle.

After that, it was all a rather frenzied swirl of discarded clothing, until they'd somehow ended up on Sam's rickety bed, stark naked, their cocks in each other's hands, and Sam almost had to laugh—who'd have ever thought that a mutual hand job could be this exciting? Trouble was, he'd resigned himself to a celibate coma a while ago, so it wasn't like he had lube and condoms stashed in his nightstand drawer. He'd glossed over the coma bit when explaining that to the man currently coming undone in his arms, of course, but Gene had just chuckled and kissed him again, so he guessed mumbling something about coming down from Hyde and expecting to be lonely for a while had done the trick.

He was shaken out of his musings—quite literally—by an especially kinky twist Gene's thumb had just bestowed on his erection, and he wisely gave up thinking in favour of enjoying the way his DCI ravished his neck with open-mouthed kisses. Trying to get closer, ever closer, he entangled their legs and nuzzled his face into his lover's ( _Oh, that's heady stuff—right, stop thinking!_ ) shoulder. It wasn't much later that they both felt their balls tighten, their muscles shudder uncontrollably, and while Gene came with Sam's name on his breath and the only thing left in his mind, Sam exploded with a keening moan that made the other man clutch him tighter instinctively, resolved never to let go.

Minutes later, when they were just getting their heart rates back under control, Sam turned to have a look at his alarm clock—4 am, well, that was going to be one of the shorter nights. A shiver ran down his spine when he felt the bed shift behind him and the covers being dragged from under their legs over their steaming skin, and finally an arm draped around his waist possessively. Gene pulled him back, closer, until their bodies were perfectly aligned, pressed a lingering kiss to his temple, and settled down with his nose brushing the hairs at the nape of his partner's neck. Sam sighed silently, covered Gene's arm with his own. He didn't want to destroy the moment, but he had to know something.

"Out with it, Tyler, I'm nearly asleep." Sam nearly sighed again—trust the guv to use his ninja mind-reading powers now, of all occasions.

"I just meant to ask—is this it? Is this going to be… us?" He felt terribly inadequate, but words were still failing him, and he was hoping that Gene wouldn't misunderstand him by default just this once.

"If you'll have me," was the gloriously simple answer, and Sam could breathe again.

"It isn't going to be easy, keeping it a secret." He had to say it, felt like he should be pointing that out. Stupid 2006 sexually liberated world allowing him the luxury of knowing how (relatively) easy it could have been in a different world. He felt Gene snort.

"I know it isn't. But I don't want easy, I want you. And this is still my kingdom."

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is something that popped into my head while I was watching 1x06, the one in which Sam's mum wants to unplug his life support in 2006, and her deadline coincides with the time a hostage taker has set for someone to die—2 o'clock. I hadn't quite planned for it to escalate into an almost 5,000 words story, but, hey, a lot of feelings need a lot of space, i.e. words ;)
> 
> Originally published on my tumblr, this is a repost from ff.net.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing, I get nothing. Except maybe 2 or 3 notes. Have fun!


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